Family
by Emerson D'Artagnan
Summary: Petunia realizes that her sister is closer than she thinks. Tender!Petunia and Baby!Harry.


**A/N: Hey, folks, I finally got off (or rather on) my behind and wrote something else! GO ME! Gimme candy! I earned it. Anyway, I just wrote this on a whim... I don't really like the ending, maybe I can figger out how to fix it later. Anyway, I'd be deeply flattered if you'd read and review! I will return the favor! Peace and love, -Emmy.**

**Disclaimer: If I actually OWNED any of this, why would I be posting my work here instead of publishing it and making millions of dollars in books, film, merchandising, etc.?** **I feel like I'm on crazy pills! (Disclaimer: I don't own that line, either.)**

The shrill cry of a baby pierced the dark silence of 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England.

"Huzzemfrazllhmm..." Vernon Dursely snored.

"No, honey," his wife Petunia grumbled next to him with a great yawn. "That wasn't Dudley. It was the brat."

"Merumphenhmmzeltatemplemm..." He responded, shifting so that his great weight cause Petunia to have to clutch at the side of the mattress to remain in place.

"No, Vernon, it's your turn to do something about it..." After getting no response from her husband, however, save for a great, phlegmey snort, Petunia Dursley sighed sleepily and eased her bony, greyhound-like legs over the side of the bed (which was sticking up a bit on her end, as Vernon had chosen the extremes of the other side) and slipped her large, slender, skeletal feet into prim house shoes. Not bunnnies–how tacky!–but just rose pink ones that matched her rose pink nightgown and the pink spongerollers that made a thick cap on her head every night.

Shuffling down the hallway with scrape-scrape-scrapes and fanning a hand to her mouth as though to push her yawns back in until it was time to properly go about waking up, Petunia blearily made her way towards the wailing that somehow permeated the air, even from that locked-up cupboard under the stairs. Unlatching the door and stooping so that the ridges of her spine would have been visible through the flannel of her nightgown, had anyone been there to see, the slender woman reemerged from the dark space with a tiny baby cradled in her long, twiggy arms.

Baby Harry wailed and wailed, perhaps demanding food he received so much less than his fair share of, or maybe just reacting to a nightmare, a dark dream cruelly reinstating itself into the life of a tiny child who was already so terrorized. Shushing the boy harshly seemed only to have negative effects; as though he knew how she felt about him, Harry's cries grew louder, his crimson face almost glowing in the dark under the thick shock of black hair, the odd scar standing out a stark white against the sweaty baby skin. Dudley could sleep through the night, Petunia thought bitterly to herself while rocking Harry a bit more violently than she should have, at least most of the time. Unless he was hungry, but that was perfectly acceptable– he was a growing baby boy, after all! Why did this, this stupid nephew, this son of her horrid, magic-doing, Potter-marrying sister, this curse imposed upon her once happy family, have to cry so shrilly at the least opportune moments?

Sighing, Petunia sat gently into a rocking chair, cooing 'shhhhs' at him, although with much more tenderness this time. The undulating movements of the rocking had soothing effects, though not only on Harry. As his shrieking slowly subsided and turning into pained moans and sobs, Petunia quietly stared down into his baby face and couldn't help but wonder why she hated him so much. Of course, she reminded herself silently, because he's your sister's son. But there was still a small voice in the back of her mind that pressed: but what has he done to you? The child's barely over a year old, he's done nothing but try to love you and your family and be loved in return. That's what babies do.

As Harry's moans and cries turned into sniffles and he sometimes opened his still-swollen eyelids to peer out at her with watery peepers, the color of spring grass, Petunia's own eyes grew a bit misty and she had to convince herself that it was only allergies. Picking Baby Harry up and resting him against her breast, head over her shoulder, she gently pattered on his back. With a heavy breath she noticed that Harry smelt familiar... not only like a baby, but like her younger sister. Harry smelled like Lily. How, she could not know, for here sister had been dead for months, but the Petunia swore inwardly as a hot shock of tears unexpectedly began slipping from between her sparse eyelashes.

Petunia Dursely held her nephew close against her body with one hand and cradled her head in the other, her bony shoulders shaking with silent sobs as soon her face was glistening with sticky tears of grief. Petunia had never been a good sister, never loved the only one who really loved her back, and now that one was gone. Petunia knew it was nonsensical to regret her sister's death– there was no way to change the way things were now, nor could she have been saved– but Petunia did regret that Lily died feeling unloved by her own sister. She died not knowing how much Petunia loved her, or understanding from where her deep-seated jealousy arose.

Harry, sensing something wrong, looked up at his aunt and made a small move as if to wipe her tears away. Soon, the orphaned baby was crying too, even silently. The thin woman held the boy close to her, inhaling his scent, caressing his soft baby skin, trying fruitlessly to somehow clutch her sister back to her and make Lily real again. Feeling Harry hug her back as tightly and as desperately as he was being held, Petunia realized something. She'd always known that she was the only living link Harry had to his family, but suddenly she understood that HE was the only thing SHE had left of hers as well. Her parents, sister, cousins, uncles, aunts– all gone. Lily's blood was in Harry and Petunia and no one else, and that, she realized, was the true meaning of family.

When the large, neckless Vernon Dursely awoke without the smell of sizzling bacon and eggs and toasted muffins, he went down to investigate; he discovered his wife and her nephew cradled in each other's arms, sleeping rather contentedly in the uncomfortable-looking wooden rocker in the den. Though Harry was too young to ever remember the incident, Petunia was too old to ever forget it.


End file.
